Harberger Tax

The Harberger Tax, also known as Common Ownership Self-assessed Tax (COST), is a type of property tax that aims to improve societal welfare by optimising for both investment and allocative efficiency of private property. It proposes a new kind of "partial ownership", halfway between private ownership and common ownership. ^[1] The tax is implemented by two mechanisms:

• Owners periodically self-assess their property and pay tax on its value.
• Others are able to purchase the property from the owner at the taxed price at any time, forcing a sale.

First proposed by American economist Arnold Harberger, ^[2] it was further popularised in Glen Weyl and Eric Posner's book Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society. ^[3]

References

1. Posner, Eric A.; Weyl, E. Glen (10 April 2017). "Property Is Only Another Name for Monopoly". Journal of Legal Analysis. 9 (1): 51–123. doi: 10.1093/jla/lax001 .
2. Harberger, Arnold C.; Matus Romo, Carlos (1965). "Issues for tax reform for Latin America". Joint Tax Program of the Organization of American States, eds, Fiscal Policy for Economic Growth in Latin America: 116–121.
3. "Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society". Princeton Alumni Weekly. 2018-03-07. Retrieved 2022-10-16.

See also

• Sound Dues